John Hartigan joins 7.30

News Limited Chairman and Chief Executive, John Hartigan, joins the program to discuss the company's attitude towards the Gillard Government and the UK phone hacking scandal.

Transcript

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LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: To discuss both News Limited's attitude towards the Gillard Government and the News of the World scandal, I spoke earlier today to News Limited's chairman and chief executive John Hartigan at the company's Sydney headquarters.

Mr Hartigan, you said in your statement yesterday that you have absolutely no reason to believe that there's been any wrongdoing at News Limited. What's the source of your confidence?

JOHN HARTIGAN, CEO, NEWS LIMITED: Look, I've worked in newspapers for 45 years, a lot of that as an editor. I know the newsrooms, I know how cultures develop, and I'm hugely confident that there is no improper or unethical behaviour in our newsrooms.

LEIGH SALES: In the United Kingdom, News International executives assured the Parliament and the public that the unethical practices were the work of one rogue operator, and that was proven to be incorrect. Does it make it harder for you then to make the case that you've just made?

JOHN HARTIGAN: I think it does, but I think people need to understand the very different environments that we have in newspapers in this country and also in the United Kingdom. They refer to a lot of the media as "red tops" in the United Kingdom. They're very aggressive newspapers. They have - you know, they're very sensational, they deal with people's lives, private lives, and they - some of the behaviours that have come out have obviously been driven by the need to get in front of each other. I would argue very strenuously that we don't have those behaviours in Australia.

LEIGH SALES: It is a competitive environment in Australia though.

JOHN HARTIGAN: It is, but I see journalists every day and I know when they're behaving in an entirely proper way and, you know, cultures that develop - you see some English journalists that come here and soon the culture rejects them. You know, they - I'm not suggesting all English journalists - there's some very fine ones, but there's the cowboys in the system and they simply don't get any grounding here.

LEIGH SALES: If I'd come to see you the week before the Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal broke, you would have said to me then, "Leigh, I'll tell you that that would not be going on." If something of that scale could be going on without News Limited executives being aware, how could there not be something like phone hacking going on without you not being aware of it?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Sure. No, that's a very good point. I'd argue, again, very strenuously that one is a football club - it has its executive team, it has a board and it had people that were working together illegally to cover up. In the case of our newspaper system, we have individual divisions, each of them has a managing director, they have editorial processes. If there's monies to be advanced, they need to be signed off on. So, the monies that would support this illegal behaviour simply would be brought to light.

LEIGH SALES: You've announced that there'll be a review of editorial expenditure over the past three years to make sure that all payments to contributors have been for legitimate things. Why did you decide on that three-year period, particularly given that the salient period in the UK predates that?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Sure. Look, frankly I'd be open to any period that anyone wants. I thought that, for the reasons of the Melbourne Storm, that it was very important that rather than saying, hand on heart, no illegal practice or unethical practice happens in News Limited, put some rubber on the road by having a period of time to give people confidence about our behaviours.

LEIGH SALES: Your paper, and indeed all of us in the media are often the first to criticise organisations investigating themselves. Would News Limited be open to co-operating with a parliamentary inquiry or an independent inquiry into journalists' conduct in Australia if one were announced?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Yeah, look, I think that that would be totally unnecessary. I think that the Press Council, despite the fact that some people are suggesting that doesn't work in an environment, I think is a very solid body. You've got a statutory authority that looks at broadcast media, and I would argue that the behaviours of press which operate under a Press Council which is funded by ourselves are no different to the behaviours of those who operate under a statutory organisation.

LEIGH SALES: You're known to be close to Rupert Murdoch. Have you spoken to him about what's going on in the UK?

JOHN HARTIGAN: No, I haven't.

LEIGH SALES: Is Rebekah Brooks gonna be coming to work for the company in Australia?

JOHN HARTIGAN: No, she's not.

LEIGH SALES: Do you have any plans to speak to Mr Rupert Murdoch about what's been going on?

JOHN HARTIGAN: I speak to Rupert Murdoch often, and undoubtedly I will, but quite obviously he's got his hands full at the moment.

LEIGH SALES: In the UK, some of the focus now is on the relationships between the media and politicians and whether or not the Murdoch press bully and intimidate them and abuse their power by running stories with an obvious agenda. Do your newspapers in Australia bully politicians or officials in that manner?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Look, I think we take them to their official capacity and responsibilities. I don't believe that we ever overstep. Yes, it's a love-hate relationship and sometimes it's loving and sometimes it's very hateful, but I don't think, generally speaking, that we exceed our authority.

LEIGH SALES: The independent MP Rob Oakeshott believes that since he backed Julia Gillard to form government, that some of the News Limited reporting about him has been, to quote him, "Malicious and shamelessly unfair" because they disagreed with the decision that he made. Do you see examples of that in your publications?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Look, I think we think we've been very aggressive with Rob Oakeshott, as we have with the other independents.

LEIGH SALES: Unfairly aggressive?

JOHN HARTIGAN: I wouldn't have thought so. I think his electorate, which is largely a conservative electorate, asks questions of him and we reflect those questions.

LEIGH SALES: The Age reported in June last year that you personally told a meeting of senior New South Wales police that they could choose to work with News Limited or not, and that paper reported that police took that as a threat, that if they didn't co-operate your group's reporters, that they would receive negative coverage. Are they right in that interpretation?

JOHN HARTIGAN: No, they're not. In fact it's the opposite. The Police Commissioner at that time said to me that he had no intention of working with the media in this country. He then went about, in my view, a series of leaking to an opposition newspaper organisation, but he instigated that. I went there to really open the bounds of having a relationship with him; he chose not to.

LEIGH SALES: So what did you mean then when you said you can work with us or against us?

JOHN HARTIGAN: No, I didn't say that. What I said - what he said was that he had no intention of working with the media. He was a new Police Commissioner and he chose to go about his way in a very different and not open way that I would have thought that he would have.

LEIGH SALES: And so what did you say to that?

JOHN HARTIGAN: I said, well, that's his initiative. If he plans to do that, I didn't question that.

LEIGH SALES: A number of senior Government ministers have told 7.30's political editor Chris Uhlmann that they believe News Limited is doing all it can to force regime change in Australia, that they want the Gillard Government out. Stephen Conroy's said that on the record. Is that the case?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Look, I've heard that that has been said. Interestingly, no-one has stood up to say, "Hey, it's me," and I would suggest that's a whispering campaign, and like most whispering campaigns, it has no element of truth.

LEIGH SALES: Well, some of the examples that people point to are things like Anthony Albanese has said that News Limited papers have run inaccurate stories, Stephen Conroy has complained that the coverage of the NBN for example is skewed to be negative and not balanced. What do you say to those examples?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Well, I think most people would think that the BER program was a sham and very badly organised and I think that some of our newspapers reflected that very strongly. Some of the other issues - the NBN, I think, you know, Australians are asking a lotta questions about the transparency of huge amounts of billions of dollars. So I would suggest that we're acting in the public interest.

LEIGH SALES: So, you stand by your coverage - say, The Australian's coverage of the NBN as being fair and balanced?

JOHN HARTIGAN: I do, yeah.

LEIGH SALES: There was a meeting of News Limited executives and senior journalists and editors in Carmel in the United States recently, and again Gillard Government ministers have told 7.30 that they believe that after that meeting News Limited publications escalated their anti-Gillard Government campaign. Was there any directive issued along those lines?

JOHN HARTIGAN: I think it's very necessary to say what that meeting was about. We have a lot of meetings, we're a global company, and we're going through, arguably, the greatest change in media at the moment, and you're seeing all sorts of digital channels, you're seeing audiences moving around. That was about seeing what is the best practice for us as a company, as a corporation?

LEIGH SALES: So there's no company-wide directive then that you want the Gillard Government out?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Absolutely not. I think, you know, we're a company of values, like most companies, and we have very implicit values, we have things that we think as a company and individually as editors that need to be done. One of them is a leadership vacuum by minority government, but there's lots of leadership vacuums around Australia at the moment. You know, there's lots of issues.

LEIGH SALES: If you disagree that News Limited is running a campaign against the Gillard Government, where then do you think is the source of this widespread view among ministers, why is it held?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Well I think it's held because largely we're the only organisation that really takes it up to the Government, and also when they're at record low levels of public support, I think that endears that sense that, "Hey, there's one organisation out to get us," rather than the performance of the party.

LEIGH SALES: You don't think you could say that the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and the ABC apply a reasonable amount of scrutiny to the Gillard Government?

JOHN HARTIGAN: They do, but they also feed, very largely, they get preferred treatment because they tend to support most of the Government initiatives. The Australian doesn't. It does on occasion, but it really is very strident in the way that it covers politics and I'd argue it's really the only newspaper in Australia that properly covers politics, national politics.

LEIGH SALES: The Government's extended the deadline for a decision about the Australian Network tender which is being bid for by Sky and the ABC. Why do you believe that the Government - the Cabinet has taken that out of the hands of DFAT and given it to Stephen Conroy?

JOHN HARTIGAN: Look, I'd love, Leigh, to have a discussion about this, but part of the tender process is that we not speak publicly about it, despite the fact that some appear to have, and I plan to abide by that.